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Horrible. Waited to make final judgment on SP1. SP1 sucked and broke many legacy directx applications. Migrating back. Vista is horrible, unusable for games, and is fraught with BS issues. Its like Windows ME, but not as bad. Piss off microsoft.

Which video driver did you use for your testing? The one that installs with Vista, or the one from ATI's website?

I ask because on my computer, running Vista-RC2, ATI's website driver won't let me run UT2004 above 640x480 without corrupting the lower part of the screen - at my preferred res of 1280x1024, the lower 2/3 of the screen is corrupt and shows part of the UT2004 menu instead of the game screen. Microsoft's driver (which was presumably written by ATI) shows no such problems; however running UT2004 in RC2 with that driver seems much slower than in XP with CAT 6.9.
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Were the experiments you performed with UAC off or on? Is there any difference in game performance between UAC being on or off? (I would imagine there would be some performance hit if UAC were on). Reply

As stated, I can't get into the technical aspects of what a change to Vista will mean; I'm somewhat managing to grasp what the review is discussing. But before you stop reading, my comment is more of a generalized observation - I'm not the first, I'm sure. And by the way, thanks to AnandTech for the great resources on all of this information, and thanks to you as a community for your interesting posts and points therein.

In essence, I've been following quite closely over the last 1.5 years the progress being made for high-end computer components. Unfortunately, what I see is a very bleak future for technology, if business can't separate itself from the creative process. I see these very small incremental increases in "horsepower" when card after card comes rolling out, with only a one or two letter/number designator to set it apart from it's predecessor. Business has become overly greedy, and in reality I think it's harming the industry as a whole, for the following reasons:

1. RACING = AUTOMOBILES as GAMING = COMPUTERS, in my humble opinion. When you have a lot of different teams, competing to develope better and faster, you see dramatic positive changes in the industry as a whole. But in reality, just take for instance, the merger between ATI and AMD. This does not at ALL appear to me a move to increase competition, and push for greater advances in the industry. On the contrary, this move will further restrict the ability for smaller companies to maintain competition, because in reality, the market has no choice.

2. Before I'm labeled as an MS hater (and I do love MS), it is still a fact that MS is realistically the ONLY choice for the gaming industry at this point. This further restricts the ability for competition and creativity - this article, and the fact that the whole world is watching for what Vista will become, proves my point true. If Vista isn't enhancing for the gaming industry, then we as gamers (and developers) are forced to either a.) wait for SP enhancements (out of our control), or b.) not transition to Vista (which won't remain an option for long, as history shows MS ceasing support for prior OS, thus forcing transition in the long run). And if anyone has read the other article on "WINDOWS-READY Games", it's very clear that Microsoft wants to take control of the direction the entire industry heads - and I have my reservations that technological progression and competition will be highlights of the MS agenda.

My conclusion (and I don't claim to be 'right'), but in my humble opinion: I see an industry that is becoming less and less competitive, and I also see products that are less and less productive, while becoming more and more expensive. What I see from MS lately, is more concern over copyright / piracy / security-related issues, and less of a concern for advances in performance, expanding the limits on creativity and control for the devoper / gamer to modify and expand, etc. If anyone can afford to sacrifice a little profit to see gains in the advance of an entire industry, it's MS. Hey - it's just business, but when you have an empire such as the world has allowed MS to become (myself included) because up to now they are the best, there really isn't all that much pressure on MS to provide the market with a truly astounding and creatively progressive product, and we as the community have no real available means to force MS to do better.

What are we going to do, abstain from MS? (And for you Linux / MAC / -insert alternate OS here- fans, don't respond; this was a rhetorical question for the 98% of the community for whom this issue will have the most impact, no offense). Reply

>>>
What I see from MS lately, is more concern over copyright / piracy / security-related issues, and less of a concern for advances in performance,
>>>

you brought it down to the point.

However,there WILL be new features in Vista regarding better performance, just mentioning ONE thing which will be superfetch, which could be seen as a "intelligent" prefetcher which will know what applications you use mostly (and when) and will speed up loading of programs.

NEVER EVER was MS Windows a "gamer OS"..you dont need the whole Windows overhead AT ALL for playing a game - but we just dont have a choice :)

The moment MS came out with DirectX basically meant that games need Windows to interact with hardware...which basically is a monopoly...ever thought how much "sense" it makes that the ability of running a certain game automatically DEPENDS on a certain OS ?

There were times when an OS was not an requirement at all for running games...just to show you how "brainwashed" we actually are :)

One good thing however, hardware/memory is NOT that expensive anymore.

People should refrain from complaining about "memory requirements" for Vista etc....which firstly, are so not true AT ALL....and, secondly, it wouldnt just make sense to go Vista yo utilize its new features - and at the same time complaining that the new features use MORE memory than eg. what XP did.

Then please get another stick of memory, problem solved :)

Besides, hardware requirements in general....it looks like Vista will not even USE DX10, so the *requirement* for a DX10 card is NIL:....it WILL run fine on MOST recent hardware

ALso...from a certain point of view MS actually did GOOD putting a big focus on security...because those were the major issues in previous versions, and for sure of concern for the "every day user".

Built-in spyware-scanner etc...etc....much more security..nothing speaks against it Reply

This is the first I've heard of the elimination of Hardware accelleration for sound systems. I don't understand how software only can possibly have the same high quality as a well designed DACs. Can you please do some testing and see how much sound quality is impared? I love lisening to music through my computer and if Vista is going to degrade that experience.... well.. Reply

No offense to the Anandtech team and Ryan, but that article was a little too light. Considering that Anandtech doesn't write about Vista builds very often, I expected more! For one thing, when you mention a feature or a change from the previous build, don't just mention it, ELABORATE! Not all of us have the time toi beta test the RC builds and sometimes we just weren't aware of the feature/change you've just glossed over. A case in point being MS's dropping hardware EAX. I'd never heard that they'd be doing this, and so either don't mention it in your article (save it for your next article), or do an Anandtech style job, not a glossy PC magazine type effort. Reply

According to what I have read, the November release of Vista is supposed to be the Enterprise versions only. Versions for non-corporate users are not supposed to be available until 2007; Microsoft is hoping to use this time to fix issues pertinent to home users as well as to provide time for OEMs to come up with better drivers for their hardware for home users' graphics/sound/etc.

Keep this in mind, because that's why MS is waiting to address any gaming/enthusiast issues, which aren't necessary for the corporate editions of Vista, so they're not considered pressing at the moment.

That said, the disappearance of hardware Directsound3D acceleration and EAX really bothers me, and if Vista causes me to lose that, it is yet another reason not to use Vista on my primary machine. One of the primary reasons I even use a Creative Labs card is for this, and to offload from the CPU, as well as some of the neat effects EAX provides when done right. Reply

Likely the rationale behind this (which I don't like but understand because of the changes to the entire audio subsystem) is that since dual-core will soon be the norm, it'll be an easy way to use the additional cores.

Furthermore, I don't really see any reason why new audio card designs cannot provide acceleration again. It's really the current generation that isn't designed to account for it. But time will tell on this hopeful guess. Reply

ONE person defines it as
"Some tasks are offloaded to the GPU now to take the burden off the CPU"

while another person sees it as "increased burden for the GPU"

BUT THEN...what's the big deal ?

OF COURSE new GUI features (like the 3d windows flipper) will burden the GPU...you will get nothing for free..of course.

Nevertheless you could ALWAYS disable the new windows-management and go classic (if so desired)...IN FACT as mentioned multiple times) people could VERY WELL tweak down Vista A LOT, starting w/ disabling services, turning off spyware scanner. set to classic GUI ----> MINIMAL

BUT THERE IS NO POINT !

You dont go out and buy a $250 OS w/ XYZ new features and then disable all features due to a lack of memory or scared it would use too much resources.

Either GO VISTA and be aware that new features/processes/programs WILL use more mem/CPU/GPU....or just stick w/ XP and save some coins til you can buy an addtional stick of memory. ?

The other "hardware requirements" are really only a myth....Dx10 gfxcard requirement is a myth, and every $499 off-the shelf computer from CompUSA/BestBUY/Dell already has a decent CPU...ALTHOUGH i am positive there will be again many "complete" systems sold w/ Vista installed with RIDICULOUS low amount of memory...eg. 512MB with the option to "upgrade" which (of course) would HIGHLY be recommended :)

For many upgrading to VISTA will require hardware upgrades. After all is said and done, after the expense of the hardware, after the expense of the new OS, it comes down to performance. The performance indicators shown in this article rhetorically ask the question: what is the point of upgrading? Reply

quote:For many upgrading to VISTA will require hardware upgrades. After all is said and done, after the expense of the hardware, after the expense of the new OS, it comes down to performance. The performance indicators shown in this article rhetorically ask the question: what is the point of upgrading?

To get you to spend money, of course!
...And hence, make the hardware manufacturers happy!

Windows users should be well in-tuned with the general pattern by now!
=> With every new release of a new Windows, you must upgrade your system or buy a new one. Reply

Could you please update the article with the Windows Vista RC2/5743 build, which will be released on Friday? This will be the final interim build released to the public before RTM therefore I would expect a high level of anticipation with respect to the performance of this build.

quote:We'll leave the question of why anyone would release a Vista-only game for you to debate.

Oh my God I have such a good laugh at that. I saw some Halo 2 vids for PC in some montage video and it looked pretty smooth. I'd say above 40fps but with this article I am sure your going to need like Quad-SLI setup or comparable to run it smooth and high res (1900x1200) or greater. Reply

My experience with vista RC-1 hasn't been that pleasent over all... Firstly, still no support for the Promise Ultra100TX controller card at all, which saddens me greatly. Secondly, whether I did something to mess it up or not I am not sure. But for sone reason I have no optical drive support in my RC-1. I was messing around with nVidia's pre-release vista platform drivers, so perhaps that is a part of the issue. Also, support for doom was absolutly horrendous for my system (running Gefore 7800GT). It appeared to me that there was absolutly no HW openGL rendering. Again, perhaps I messed something up with drives, though I did install the latest available Vista64 build on nVidia's website.

Perhaps the 32bit version of vista is just much father ahead of the 64b version in terms of driver support and maturity. If this is the case, then I am rather conserned. MS is trying to move the world to 64b wtih vista, and I would love to join them. But not if it means destroying my already working Windows XP system. Reply

Unfortunately, Nvidia has dropped the ball with the OGL icd for Vista. ATi, however, has released a working one.

OpenGL works fine in Vista just like XP. MS just doesn't ship a driver since that's the job of the video card vendors. When Nvidia and ATi both get their drivers complete, MS will include a WHQL qualified driver with Vista, but you'll still want to update it. Reply

Yeah, but what is weird is that when I tried Beta 2 the drivers worked much better. Doom 3 wasn't fast by any means, but playable, and it looked like doom 3. It seems to me almost as if MS took a step backwards with the driver situation with RC-1. I'm waiting with bated breath for RC-2 on friday. I want to see how RC-2 compares. Reply

quote:At this point we've been using RC1 for nearly a month, and the newer build 5728 for over two weeks, and while we're ready to switch back to XP until Vista is completed due to some video issues, Vista is ready to be taken seriously.

Yet never expands on what the video issues are, or even HINTS at what they might be related to. Are the video issues driver related, video playback related, gaming related, what?

It's the game benchmarks. As much as 40% performance hit (in FEAR @ 1600x1200 with 4X AA). I too would like a clarification on who is to blame for this: 1) Windows Vista 2) ATi's Driver Team.

I'm assuming it is a driver-related issue which ATi will most definitely resolve by the time Vista's released. If there was something fundamentally wrong with Vista itself, then 3DMark results wouldn't be near identical to the XP results. Reply

I am REALLY hoping it's as simple as a newer (better) patch from ATI. I think it would be doable. We can see patches coming out pretty regularly adding value and features to our existing hardware. So hopefully as said above, the ATI driver should fix things. Did they test with nVidia and look for discrepancies? Reply

When I ran F.E.A.R. on Vista RC1, the game had massive stuttering every second or so at 800x600 0xAA 4xAF high quality on an EVGA 7900 GT KO. An old 2D/3D RPG that I had lying around got massive framerate improvements - IOW, it became playable! - simply by moving it to an XP SP2 install with a lowly 6200 TC-256 card. There are definitely major problems for the Vista driver teams to fix. And I still can't get any sound out of my Audigy... Reply

intersting, the first thign I did wiht Vista X64, is to compare Half Life 2 Lost Coast timedemos between the X64 versions of Windows XP and Vista. I found a MASSive improvement, quite repeatable, at the highest quality settings at 1600 X 1200 on an ASUS p5W deluxe running an X1800 XT. I mean 68 fps compared to 48 in XP.
I wonde if Anand and tema would consider doing an X64 comparison. I have lived in teh X64 world for some time now, and therefore have all the XP X64 drivers I need to install all my hardware! This is a far cry from Windows 2000, wheere ti was like it or lump it! (New HP scanner anyone? Creative sound cards? Forget it!) Reply

The compatibility score would drop through the floor if they tested the 64bit version of vista. It's got nothing to do with the 64bitness--I am comparing to XP-64. The 64 bit version forbids unsigned drivers from loading, which while this may be eventually resolved by all the indie developers, for now means no daemon tools and no ultramon.

Be very careful with 64bit vista, it has disadvantages when compared to xp-64 Reply

I disagree, are you using RC1, or Vista beta? I loaded all my hardware using various unsigned drivers, including my Epson RX510. I am fairly certain Microsoft dropped that requirement from RC1, because I have read it in lots of forum posts, but never encounterd any problems. Reply

I'm using Vista RC1 (build 5600) x64, and it still seems to have the signed driver requirement. You can select to disable signed drivers temporarily for one boot from the F8 boot options menu, but under normal operation Vista will prevent my Gretag Macbeth Eye-one drivers from loading (said drivers work perfectly in XP x64, naturally). Reply

Well personally I expect more robustness, capabilities, and security. That stuff all comes at the cost of speed. I absolutely do not expect several years of development in an OS to improve process startup time. I expect the process to become more involved and powerful and thus the speed to on the whole remain the same. Reply

This "gaming" review may be interesting for people who buy ATI cards which are a mix of nice hardware and stinking decomposing corpse of software... until I see your review with various GeForce video cards I won't pass any judgement on Vista. I expect ATI to continue producing a joke they call "Vista drivers" and will accept only the gaming benchmark results made on nVidia cards. Thank you. Reply

I am NOT going into the age-long debate "Ati has so bad drivers" discussion anymore...we could've had that YEARS ago in Radon 8500 times...now your biased blahblah just hasn't any base and just shows you're a n00b :)
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Basicly put (someone correct me if im wrong here) MS moved away from all hardware based rendering of sound and put it into the OS. Im guessing its a directx 10 thing is why they did it..but Im sure Creative is pissed. Reply

creative sucking or not. M$ taking away ALL and ANY hardware accelration for games SUCKS.

Creatives solution/monoloply is not the best, but given the fact that in general (90%) of the people buying an extra sound card do so for gaming, and creative for better or worse has 100% of the gaming market, locking creative out is a BAD thing.

So we had problems with creative and there drivers and bloat.

Answer me this? what do we have now? A M$ controled SOFTWARE SOUND SOLUTION!!!. EAX is not perfect, but alot of games use it, and when the do, it is GOOD!.

Now were are left with ONBOARD Sound!!!. YAAA thats a step in the right direction? phhhf sorry hardware sound, even creative owns most onboard sound solutions. (Yes there was sound storm, but that was generations ago now).

I'm not a creative fan-boy, I wish there was more then one 'real' sound card for gamers.

BUT I WOULD RATHER HAVE A CREATIVE SOUND CARD DOING EAX, THEN HAVING SOFTWARE SOUND ONLY.

Be a fanboi, Hate Creative. But this is not good for sound. (and yes there are ways around it, be geez, M$ just KILLED creative).

And yes creative knew about it for a long time. However I don't know if they really saw what happened until way too late.

So you Creative Haters, You won, lets all enjoy crappy on-board sound now!. YAAA, on board is soo cool. Reply

Basically they've changed the whole audio subsystem completely. As part of this change they have also moved DirectSound3D to a pure software implementation with no way for the hardware to directly interact with it. This is particularly effects games which use Directsound and EAX since the EAX effects are performed in hardware.

However other APIs can still take advantage of hardware acceleration, such as OpenAL. Reply

well..giggle..the creative programmers get PAID for writing drivers, right ? :)
New APIs/implementations need new drivers, maybe even new HW if the old one is not capable. This is NOT necessarely a BAD thing !

Vista comes in both 32 bit and 64 bit flavors, you can choose which one you install.

I also resisted switching before, but never really regretted it ;). I'm guessing Vista won't get on here before the first service pack - the gaming performance and mem usage is too horrid at the moment. Or maybe that'll get fixed with better drivers / tweak guides. Reply

You can check for yourself, and i did too. DWM, the new windows management uses SOME memory, comparable to Explorer...but then it does new 3d fancy stuff and similiar. Of course, more features need more memory.

You COULD always disable and tweak-down stuff in Vista, as well as you can in XP....HOWEVER i'd say 2GB for Vista would be perfect and 1GB (as i have on XP Pro right now) is a little tight. *IF* you go vista then you of course also want to take advantage of its fetaures, right ? Otherwise you could as well stay with XP..or even get 98 "to save memory" :)

But its NOT the case that the memory usage of Vista is SOOO over the roof as some people suggest..it's just not true.
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its not really a myth... those features that are unessesary mostly install by default... and unless you know what your doing (which i might add the new windows is even LESS user friendly) then the memory will remain taken up and what should have run without any hang ups on 1 gig now has you concidering 2 gigs would be better. as little a cost that is, the average user isnt going to need half the crap that vista adds and just makes those that dont need to get a C+ certifacation on computers will be even more lost. Windows isnt suposed to be a prosumer operating system. its supose to be an easy to use way for your software to work for you. Vista is like the Mini with 6 airbags... while it sounds better its just a gimmick. i do understand that there may have been some nessesary upgrades to the system. they just packed it with what ever crap they could think of. Reply

Wow, what folks are willing to consider normal today. If someone would have told you even just 5 years ago that the OS would require 2 billion+ (2,147,483,648) bytes of main memory, what would folks have said? And now it is considered just dandy? Even "bloat" doesn't adequately describe where OS’s and applications are headed. Big programming teams with less pride in craft left these days I guess. Reply

I doubt that the majority of hardware that works in WindowsXP with a 32bit driver has a working 64 bit counterpart. There are products from Windows 2000 era that work in XP, made by companies that are no longer around, or no longer support those products. Until there is a 64bit wrapper for 32bit drivers, those devices will be unusable. Reply

No matter how much the final version improves in the next month or so, its still nice to know that the xp->vista launch will be much smoother than the 98/me->xp launch, as far as software and hardware compatibility goes.

On the other hand, the 98 -> xp upgrade was probably a much bigger improvement in terms of features and general os design when compared to xp -> vista. Reply